DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA APPLIES NEW KNOWLEDGE IN WATER MANAGEMENT

(Reissued as received.)

ROME, 21 April (FAO) – The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is applying knowledge gained from a forestry project on sustainable development of upland water catchments and use of marginal agricultural land to help reduce soil erosion, protect natural resources and increase agricultural output in the country, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

“In a country that largely depends on agriculture for self-sufficiency and has seen its agricultural production devastated by floods and droughts in the recent past, an integrated and participatory approach to watershed management is essential”, said Thomas Hofer, an FAO forestry expert.

“Applying watershed management throughout the country, planting trees in the uplands and developing integrated approaches to the use of natural resources, will help diminish soil degradation and the dangers of floods and downstream sedimentation”, Hofer said.

Trees help retain water in the soil, preventing water from flowing downstream all at once during heavy rains and keeps moisture in the soil during low rainfall.  Their roots also cling unto the soil, making it more difficult for soil to erode.

Forests, Soil Erosion and Agricultural Output

Soil erosion and sedimentation from floods and droughts between 1994 and 2000 have caused massive destruction and reduced the country's agricultural output in the last decade.  In 1995 and 1996 alone, 16 per cent of its arable land was damaged by floods.  The floods also destroyed irrigation and transportation infrastructure, as well as 30 out of 90 tree nurseries.

To compensate for the drop in agricultural output, forests have been extensively exploited and converted into agricultural land on steep slopes of marginal lands, which are vulnerable to soil erosion.  Forests were also felled for fuelwood and to earn foreign currency from the sale of forest products.

As a consequence, one quarter of North Korea's non-agricultural land on hills and mountains is bare today.

Tree Nurseries and Training

To put an end to this vicious cycle and offset the progressively diminishing forest quality and agricultural output, the FAO launched in 2001, at the request of the Government, a watershed management project to reverse degradation of upland resources by addressing the decline of natural forest cover.

The FAO has also helped the Government to analyze the situation of upland resources, to collect data on forest land degradation and to identify measures to conserve and develop forest and other natural resources.  It has rehabilitated damaged nurseries and established new ones for reforestation.  Two small-scale pilot and demonstration sites for long-term management of watersheds have been established and country people have been trained to apply their newly-gained knowledge from the sites for replication elsewhere.

Based on the experience of the project, North Korea is now developing a watershed management plan for the TaedongRiver, which flows through the capital, Pyongyang.

“By applying elsewhere what we have learned from the pilot sites, we hope to see sustainable use of natural resources and greater agricultural output in the country”, Hofer said.

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